putterings 557 < 558 > 558a index
This time the trip was a long one, over Queensboro Bridge and on into Long Island City, but at last she reached her destination — the little grocery store over which Minnie Cassidy lived in two cheerless rooms. Ruth had made the trip once before — on Christmas Day — to visit the old scrubwoman, temporarily bedridden with rheumatism.
Entrance was through the mean, dirty little store, inefficiently run by Minnie’s son-in-law, with the help of the girl, Rose.
“Hello, Rose!” Ruth greeted the pretty, untidy girl behind the counter, “I want to see your mother.”
“She’s upstairs, Miss Lester. Bud isn’t here, and I’m alone in the store. Would you mind going up alone?”
Ruth found Minnie Cassidy puttering about a disordered kitchen. “Good land, child! What brings ye here?” Minnie greeted the girl. "Here take the weight off your pretty feet! Phut! Don’t bother! That’s only the cat’s saucer and it was cracked anyway... Now, what’s Tommy McMann been up to? Has he arrested your young man, and do ye think old Minnie can help ye out?”
ex Anne Austin. The Black Pigeon (1929) : 222 : link
“Popular author turns her talent to mystery story for News-Times,” South Bend News-Times (January 22, 1929)
LoC’s Chronicling America : link
reviewed in America (“A Catholic Review of the Week”) 41:11 (June 22, 1929) : 263 : link —
“The Black Pigeon” (Greenberg. $2.00) by Anne Austin is a challenge to confirmed mystery hounds. Almost every character in the story is under suspicion for the death of “Handsome Harry” Borden; except, perhaps, his secretary, Ruth Lester, who used to feed the pigeons every morning from the sill of the office window which looked across the narrow airshaft into the office of Jack Hayward, Ruth’s fiance. Of course Hayward had reasons for disliking Borden and had innocently woven a net of circumstances which might prove difficult to explain. But Ruth was the only one who knew and she would never tell. The dead man’s widow was not without motive for the deed and she was, perhaps, the last one to visit the office on that fateful Saturday afternoon. Detective Sergeant McMann, of the New York police force, well merits the $5,000 reward for bringing the murderer to justice.
—
Carolyn Wells mentions the book in her The Technique of the Mystery Story (New and Revised Edition, Home Correspondence School, 1929) : 63 : link —
“The Black Pigeon” by Anne Austin is a fine piece of work. There isn’t an automobile chase in it, not a single person bound or gagged or thrown into a gas chamber; no one is kidnapped or shanghaied. But it has a most persistently compelling interest and there is no false note struck anywhere. It is bright, fresh, modern. The slang is brisk and telling. The suspense, subtly managed, rises cumulatively to the dramatic climax.
The author of this book says:
“A black pigeon, which actually left footprints of blood on my own office window in the Marbridge Building in New [63] York City, gave me the idea for the story, but I let it simmer in my subconscious for three or four months before attempting to make a detective novel out of it. The actual writing was begun October 17th and finished at midnight, December 16th — exactly two months. I may add that I never had a sound night’s sleep the entire two months. But if any reader has a tenth of the fun and thrill reading it as I had in writing it, I’ll not grudge the lost sleep.”
Anne Austin (1895?-1975), journalist, writer of romance and mystery fiction; later writer under contract at MGM.
- wikipedia (gives birth year as 1895): link
- Anne Austin at findagrave : link
gives birth year as 1893 - her Jackson Street (1927) is reviewed in The New York Times (November 20, 1927) : link (paywall)
this passage of interest —
“Jackson Street” carries Mary Carey along from the slums of a small Texas city to college, early and unwise marriage, motherhood, freedom again and success as a newspaper woman, with promise of poetic achievement. Then love once more. But Mary Carey, dreading marriage, will only agree to live with her lover. She refuses to marry him, fearing a repetition of her earlier unhappiness. There comes the day when her lover bids her farewell, assuring her that a man desires to be bound, to settle down into the prosaic humdrum of being a husband that he may get his mind on other things than being a lover...
some contributions for the Anne Austin timeline —
- “Mrs. Willie Reamy Benson, who writes under the pen name, Anne Austin, is now editor of People’s Popular Monthly, Des Moines, Iowa.” in The Baylor Bulletin (“Ex-student Number,” February 1919): link
- Mother’s Day
Mother’s Day ! How much I ought to show
Fidelity, Faith, Love, Gratitude;
One day is far to brief, I know,
To recognize that high beatitude.
All these — and more — I bring, oh, mother mine,
My sacred duty, and thy right divine.
— Willie Reamy Bensonin Sheaf of Baylor Verse, Compiled by Flora Eleanor Wells, in The Baylor Bulletin No. 4 (Waco, Texas; July 1, 1919) : link
- Editor of Peoples’ Popular Monthly (Des Moines, Iowa), then The Beaumont Journal (Beaumont, Texas), which “uses practically all syndicate material.” (The Editor, August 2, 1920) : link
- a trade advertisement for The Peoples’ Popular Monthly, featuring a portrait of Anne Austin, editor, appears in Judicious Advertising (February 1919) : link
- Editor of Real Life Stories (Screenland, Inc.) ca 1924 (The Authors’ League Bulletin, June 1924) : link
These later instances are speculative; they certainly need more work. I believe that Anne Austin had some health issues (spine), and so might have taken a secondary editorial role. Also, it seems likely to me that she was politically liberal — perhaps not to the degree as her Communist-organizer daughter — and that she may well have gravitated to publications with a leftist (albeit Christian) bent.
I may be completely mistaken; but noting clues as I find them. - An Anne Austin is assistant to the editor of Social Action ca 1950-51, edited by Kenneth Underwood; see for example masthead for issue 17:2 (February 15, 1951): link,
“published monthly, except July and August, by the Council for Social Action of the Congregational Christian Churches and by the Commission on Christian Social Action of the Evangelical and Reformed Church”
Underwood is associated with the Danforth Study of Campus Ministries, entitled >The Church, the University, and Social Policy, which was published by Wesleyan University Press in 1969. The Danforth Study of Campus Ministries, sponsored by the Danforth Foundation beginning in 1963, was directed by Kenneth Underwood. Through questionnaires, studies, and analysis, the project documented the state of religious awareness and commitment on American university and college campuses.
this from the Danforth Study of Campus Ministries records, Yale Divinity School, RG 62 : link
Underwood died in 1968 - “Where Do New Ideas Come From? Conformity grips the campus. Speak Up!”
“This article is based on a radio script prepared for ‘Religion at the News Desk,’ a weekly commentary over station WELI in New Haven, Connecticut. Each script is the product of group journalism. Credit for this story goes to Robert Lynn and Carl Siebel, researchers, William Miller, writer, and Anne Austin, editor for publication.”
Motive (“the magazine of the Methodist Student Movement”) 12:8 (May 1952) : 10-12 (10) : link
Austin’s daughter Elizabeth Benson (1913-94) was a celebrated child prodigy of her time, and at the age of 13 (a Barnard student) authored The Younger Generation, introduction by Frank Crowninshield (1927), reviewed in The New York Times (November 20, 1927) : link (paywalled)
U Virginia copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link
Elizabeth Benson at findagrave : link
Anne Austin wrote a series of six articles on bringing up her daughter for the NEA syndicate; the articles appeared in the Indianapolis Times (and presumably elsewhere) on June 2 through 8, 1926.
Transcriptions of these are provided at putterings 560
Greg Daugherty, “The Child Prodigies Who Became 20th-Century Celebrities,” Smithsonian Magazine (June 24, 2013) : link
Benson is one of four people profiled. It discusses her activity as a Communist organizer (in Texas!), and later in the movie industry in Los Angeles. She earns a law degree, teaches real estate law and practices as a labor organizer. No mention is made of her husband Frank E. Spector.
An Elizabeth B. Spector, atty, is listed in the Los Angeles telephone directory (June 1974), at 3325 Wilshire (380-1900). A cursory search suggests this Elizabeth B. Spector specialized in labor issues (typically on the union or worker side).
Elizabeth’s second (or even fourth?) husband was Frank E. Spector (1895-1982), a Communist Party leader, and labor organizer in California agriculture.
Frank Spector authored Story of the Imperial Valley (ILD Pamphlet No. 3, issued by International Labor Defense) (1930); also
“Imperial Valley Fights” in Labor Defender. Vol. 5 No. 7. July, 1930. link
see also Rudy Martinez, “RED BOYLE HEIGHTS: Raids and Riots on Brooklyn Avenue” at Boyle Heights History Blog (May 6, 2024) : link
The New York Times ran an AP obituary on October 7, 1982 :
“Frank Spector, 87, a Leader in Communist Party on Coast” : link
17 September 2025